A Time to Gather (Bruce Feiler)

 

A while ago I decided I needed to re-read more often. Each month I pick a book that is worth re-reading. This month I was to re-read The Ritual Effect, but this book came up in my e-book holds at the library so I decided to read it instead. It was well-worth it and a good companion to The Ritual Effect. 

I really like this author. I put a couple more of his books on hold.

The first few chapters were about rituals we go through in life: birth rituals, entering adulthood, marriage, divorce...and of course, death. I read the death chapter while at my Auntie Shirley's building. I was waiting for her to arrive back at the senior's home from the hospital. I went down to the chapel where it was quiet and read there. They had a table set up with pictures of people who had passed away over the past six months (or maybe it was a year. I can't recall). Anyway, it was a weird mash up of coincidences to be reading about death outside a Catholic chapel with pictures and birth and death dates of all the people from that home. 

Notes:

- p. 229 Rituals are a means of collective time travel. And there's no better place to begin those trips than from our original home: nature.

- p. 250 When times are easy and there's plenty to go around, individuals can go it alone. But when conditions are harsh and life is tenuous, it takes a team sworn to reciprocity to keep life going forward (actually from Braiding Sweetgrass).

p. 260 What distinguishes ritual from routine and habit:

• Rituals are intentional, symbolic, elevated actions
• Routines are intentional, repeated actions.
• Habits are automatic, repeated actions

Chapter 12 was called The Garden of Lost Children all about rituals around pregnancy loss - miscarriage, stillborn births, death of children and even abortions. He had a lot of information about stillborn children - which of course, really touched me. I had a stillborn baby in 2007. She would be 19 this year! 

• p. 335 Apparently, King Tut (Tutankhamen) was buried with two stillborn baby girls. ...largely because Carter kept it secret. p. 338 In 1978, the two mummies were x-rayed and discovered to be stillborn girls who had died at twenty-four and thirty-six weeks. They had congenital abnormalities related to spina bifida that are consistent with inbreeding - Tutankhamen's parents were biological siblings, which explains his twisted spine, elongated skull, and club foot; his wife was his half sister. In 2001, The British medical historian Geoffrey Chamberlain argued that the mummies were identical girls who suffered from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome - the same condition the author and his wife and been warned about - which led to their premature deaths.

• p. 338 I met a woman who every year on the anniversary of her abortion would make a meal that her child would have liked at that age - in the early years it was juice boxes and candy necklaces, in the teenage years it was hamburgers and french fries. She would knit a red cap, place a bib on the statue, and serve a meal. It was an ocean of love.
• p. 340 Irish traditions around baby deaths - they would bury corpses under the roofs of churches, a practice known as eaves-drop burials, so that dripping water might stealthily baptize their unprotected children
• p. 343 Many of the rituals around child death are done in a group. There's so much shame around losing a child. The only medicine strong enough to counter that pain is the bllessings of not being alone.
• p. 344 In the 2000s, scholars released studies showing that parents who see, hold, sniff, dress, kiss, and comfort their stillborn children have better mental health outcomes than those denied the privilege.
• p. 346 As Cheryl Haggard observed (started an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a nonprofit that offers free, professional remembrance photos to families that have lost a child), "Some may look at us and think we photograph dead or dying babies, my perspective is: We don't photograph death, we capture love. And the love between a parent and a child can never be broken."
• Chapter 13 is called A Moment of Hope and is all about cleansing rituals (water or oil....if only the author knew about our temples) and renewing rituals (again....this made me think of our temple). It also talked about "potlatches"....a ritual where people give all they have collected to those less fortunate (hello law of consecration?)
• Interesting podcast to check out: Shame Pinata: Creating Rites of Passage for Real-Life Transitions
• p. 383 Rituals connect us; the correct imbalances among us; they celebrate our loftiest moments; they chronicle our deepest aspirations. But mostly they make us feel at home. As Thomas Hovenden captured in another moment of national crises, they replace our grief over broken home ties with a vision of ties that bind.

P. 393 How to design your own rituals: 

• 1. Reverence: Do what makes you feel at home. Identify what you're most missing from home  - whether that's safety, empathy, love, or joy - and design a ritual with that goal in mind
• 2. Context: Identify your tension; define your intention. It must address the underlying uncertainty, fluidity and instability in the group; and provide comfort, relief, and support for that volatility. Ask, "What is our pain point? What is the tension, transition, or turbulence that we're experiencing?" Then, "What intention matches that tension?"
• A = agency (what we do, make, or create; our me story)
• B = belonging (our relationships, friends, loved ones, and colleagues; our we story)
• C = cause (a calling, mission, or purpose, our thee story)
• 3. Options: off-the-shelf or do-it-yourself, big or small, sacred space or third space.
• 4. Pointers: The four somethings (old, new, borrowed, you)
• 5. Instructions: boundaries, stakes, compromise, empathy, hope 
• draw a boundary that defines the sacred space
• articulate the stakes
• compromise-rehearse on something important
• create and atmosphere of empathy
• end with a moment of hope

• p. 400 Rituals work in times of change because they titrate change. They work in times of social upheaval because they modulate social upheaval. They work in times of religious flux because the bridge the religious, the irreligious, the spiritual, and the I'm not religious but I'm spiritual.
• Rituals work because they are acts. They are values lived out loud. As the old adage goes, it's easier to act oneself into a new way of thinking than to think oneself into a new way of acting. A genius of ritual is that it's an old way of acting that leads to a new way of thinking.
• Rituals work because they are shared. Our earliest ancestors shouted, waved sticks, and stamped their feet in unison to signal to predators that they were more powerful together than they were apart; our latest brain researchers have shown that when we sing, dance, eat, or work together, not only do our bodies synchronize, but our feelings do, too. To be in union is to become a union; to be in a group is to become a groupkeeper.
• Rituals work because they are unnecessary. We live in a stranglehold of necessities, with deadening schedules, dulling routines, and draining obligations. Rituals are the unnecessities that unyoke those necessities - they upend schedules, disrupt routines, sideline obligations. They force us to focus on what Keats deemed our "negative capability," the ability to be in "uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts" without reflexively grasping for reason or explanation.
• Finally, rituals work because they are portable, replicable versions or home. "The ache for home lives in all of us," Maya Angelou said, "The safe place where we can go as we are." Today we need that safe space more than ever - for morale making, for meaning making, for memory making.

Goodreads says:

At a time when our shared humanity is under threat and traditional life rituals are losing favor, one of our great decoders of human connection chronicles the astonishing rise of reinvented life rituals around the world and offers a blueprint for restoring togetherness.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sharp decline in the types of life rituals that have been the tentpoles of family and community life since time immemorial. Birth rituals have plummeted, as have comings-of-age. Fewer than half of Americans are married today; only one in three is buried. “It took us ten thousand years to establish cultural norms around how we mark collective life transitions,” writes Bruce Feiler. “It took us fifty years to dismantle them.” We have clearly entered what Feiler calls a “celebration recession.” Can this threat to society be reversed? 

Feiler wanted to find out. As he did with his groundbreaking series Walking the Bible, Feiler went on a round-the-world ritual road trip, attending—and participating in—life rituals in sixteen countries on six continents. These rarely seen spectacles include an adolescent tooth filing in Bali, a mass baptism in the Vatican, and a tribal bride price negotiation in South Africa. He witnessed six weddings in a day in Las Vegas and ten funerals in a week in Ireland.

As he did with Life Is in the Transitions, Feiler also gathered the stories of a hundred ritual designers in twenty-six countries, including a Pentecostal priest in Nigeria who started a fertility circle, the creator of the Purple Pundit Project in New Jersey who leads LGBTQ+ Hindu weddings, and the founder of an app in Canada that helps “create your own rites of passage.”

What Feiler emerged with is a literary achievement, at once a great adventure story in the tradition of Sebastian Junger and Cheryl Strayed; a richly reported sociological portrait in the vein of Robert Putnam and Barbara Ehrenreich; and a conversation-shaping piece of social commentary in the mode of David Brooks and Jonathan Haidt.

Far from a ritual recession, we are in the midst of a  ritual renaissance, one that our outdated radar screens have failed to pick up. Fed up with top-down life rituals, everyday people are reimagining rituals at a pace unseen in human history. From boomers to Gen Z and boosted by social media, this new movement is reviving life rituals for a new century and building thriving communities in the process.

From a master storyteller on the trail of an urgent, untold story, what Feiler has created is a hopeful field guide to modern ritual; a tool kit for infusing collective meaning into our lives; and, perhaps, a framework for repairing our homesick world.

Frida Kahlo - She Painted Her World in Self Portraits (Amy Guglielmo)

 

This author has an amazing number of books on artists. 

This one is really complete....lots of information. It wouldn't work great as a read aloud in my class because there is just so much information - but if you did a study of Frida and her art, it would be awesome. She was very inspiring.

Goodreads says:

See how iconic artists like Frida Kahlo were influenced by their environments in this beautiful series produced in collaboration with The Met.

See the world through Frida Kahlo’s eyes and be inspired to produce your own masterpieces.

Have you ever wondered exactly what your favorite artists were looking at to make them draw, sculpt, or paint the way they did? In this charming illustrated series of books to keep and collect, created in full collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see what they saw, and be inspired to create your own artworks, too. In What the Artist Frida Khalo , meet the famous Mexican painter. Learn all about how she experimented with different ways of painting herself, and how she channeled her experiences into her art. Have a go at producing your own self portrait!

In this series, follow the artists’ stories and find intriguing facts about their environments and key masterpieces. Then see what you can see and make your own art. Take a closer look at landscapes, or even yourself, with Vincent van Gogh. Try crafting a story in fabric like Faith Ringgold, or carve a woodblock print at home with Hokusai. Every book in this series is one to treasure and keep – perfect for budding young artists to explore exhibitions with, then continue their own artistic journeys.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jekins Reid)

 

This was a great read. It's one of those books that makes me despise having to work or having evening engagements. Although, it was also so good that I didn't want to rush through it and have it end too soon. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a great writer. I'm definitely going to read more of her books. I recently bought Atmosphere and while I carried it around the store two people pointed to it and tell me how much they loved the author and then the cashier said the same thing. 

I found myself wanting to look up Evelyn Hugo, figuring she had to be a real person....and reviews called it historical fiction - but there is no Evelyn Hugo. Her character is based roughly around women like Elizabeth Taylor (she had many marriages), Ava Gardner (was secretive about her life) and who knows who else. The characters sure did seem real to me! 

My daughter has read it and kept saying she couldn't wait until I got to the surprise....there were so many twists and turns that I figured she should just tell me....but she wouldn't budge. I was glad. It was a unforeseen surprise!

I'm really looking forward to discussing this one with my book club. If anyone doesn't like it, I might have to karate chop them :) 

Goodreads says:

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce)

 

This book was oddly simple but yet very profound. Harold's walking brings about a lot of time to think about his seemingly unhappy life. However, the process brings him around to figuring himself out and realizing he does want what he has. He walks to try to make amends for mistakes he has made in life and to find forgiveness for others and for himself. He realizes relationships, as full of challenges and as messy as they are, are what matters most. Along the way, sometimes our life gets crowded with all sorts of noise and people - but in the end, it's our partner and children that matter most and bring meaning.

I will go find the other books she has written that explains the story from Queenie's and Maureen's point of view.

Goodreads says:

Recently retired, sweet, emotionally numb Harold Fry is jolted out of his passivity by a letter from Queenie Hennessy, an old friend, who he hasn't heard from in twenty years. She has written to say she is in hospice and wanted to say goodbye. Leaving his tense, bitter wife Maureen to her chores, Harold intends a quick walk to the corner mailbox to post his reply but instead, inspired by a chance encounter, he becomes convinced he must deliver his message in person to Queenie--who is 600 miles away--because as long as he keeps walking, Harold believes that Queenie will not die. So without hiking boots, rain gear, map or cell phone, one of the most endearing characters in current fiction begins his unlikely pilgrimage across the English countryside. Along the way, strangers stir up memories--flashbacks, often painful, from when his marriage was filled with promise and then not, of his inadequacy as a father, and of his shortcomings as a husband. Ironically, his wife Maureen, shocked by her husband's sudden absence, begins to long for his presence. Is it possible for Harold and Maureen to bridge the distance between them? And will Queenie be alive to see Harold arrive at her door?

The Little French Bistro (Nina George)

 

I wanted to like this book....but I really didn't. There were too many characters. Too many characters were cheating on their spouse. I wanted to find hope in the main character finding herself after a sad and meaningless marriage but mostly I found it depressing. The description of the places in France were compelling and almost seemed like a character itself. That was lovely. However, overall, it just wasn't for me. 

The writing was beautiful. Interspersed all through it were little phrases that did touch me...like p. 99 I have never even noticed that I am alive said by the main character as she works through finding herself after leaving a marriage where she was never really loved or treated well.

Goodreads says:

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Little Paris Bookshop, an extraordinary novel about self-discovery and new beginnings.

Marianne is stuck in a loveless, unhappy marriage. After forty-one years, she has reached her limit, and one evening in Paris she decides to take action. Following a dramatic moment on the banks of the Seine, Marianne leaves her life behind and sets out for the coast of Brittany, also known as the end of the world.

Here she meets a cast of colorful and unforgettable locals who surprise her with their warm welcome, and the natural ease they all seem to have, taking pleasure in life's small moments. And, as the parts of herself she had long forgotten return to her in this new world, Marianne learns it s never too late to begin the search for what life should have been all along.

With all the buoyant charm that made The Little Paris Bookshop a beloved bestseller, The Little French Bistro is a tale of second chances and a delightful embrace of the joys of life in France.

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot (Marianne Cronin)

 

This book just got better and better as I read. The author is a great writer. Her metaphors and literacy connections she makes side by side as she puts the character's lives' stories together are brilliant. 

It isn't often that I actually cry when reading....but parts of this book left me in a puddle.

I was left with so many questions. This book touched on our society's inability to stand by people to the end and to think that disease and disability make someone disposable. 

Although the family connections were sad, the community that came together to support each other was beautiful. The lessons in having a purpose or project in your dying days was profound.

Re: The Title: The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

p. 44 In honor of my own vanity, at the bottom of my painted star, in yellow and using the thinnest brush I could find, I wrote Lenni, aged 17. Seeing this, Margot did the same. Margot, she wrote, 83, And then we put them side by side, the two stars against the dark.
Numbers don't mean a lot to me. I don't care about long division or percentages. I don't know my height or my weight and I can't remember my dad's phone number, though I know I used to know it. I prefer words. Delicious, glorious words. 
But there were two numbers in front of me that matters, and would matter for the rest of my numbered days. 
"Between us," I said quietly, "We're a hundred years old."

Characters: 

Linnea Pettersson (age 17)

Margot (age 83)

Dawn (counselor)

Father Arthur (minister)
Jacky -head nurse)

The Temp

Pippa (art teacher)

New Nurse - not sure why she was always referred to as New Nurse?

Lenni's mother (in Sweden most of the book)
Lenni's father

Paul (porter)

Walter and Elise and various old people in the art room

Johnny (Margot's first husband)

Meena (Catherine Amelia Houghton)
Humphrey James (Margot's second husband)

Jeremy David Star (Meena's son)

The professor Meena worked for

Words of the Wiser

p. 38 Father Arthur: Those who ask questions and return to God are better than they who never ask questions and only pay lip service to their religion.

Re: Lenni and Margot dying [see Memory Moment p. 42] Margot and I both watched her try to explain. "Your heart is beating and your eyes are seeing and your ears are hearing. You're sitting in this room completely alive. And so you're not dying. You're living. She took in Margot.  "You both are."

It simultaneously made perfect sense and no sense at all.

    (people really are uncomfortable with the idea of death, it seems!)

p. 152 "Meena was right...about not giving chase...what she said to you when you were looking for Johnny about waving someone off into their new life but not feeling the need to follow. Letting the people who need to leave, leave. Allowing them to be free."

Contrasts and Contradictions

p. 41 "What are you doing here?" she asked, and I knew she meant the Rose Room, but I think it's best to be honest, so I told her the truth.
"They say I'm doing to die."
There was a moment of silence between us as Margot studied my face. She looked like she didn't believe me.
"It's a life-limiting thing," I said.
"But you're so..."
"Young, I know."
"No, you're so..."
"Unlucky?"
"No," she said, till looking at me like she didn't believe it. "You're so alive."

p. 134 My body was taking a stand, and I sometimes had to stand with it. We were a team. Sometimes.

p. 169 We have practiced for death every night. Lying down in the dark and slipping into that place of nothingness between rest and dreams where we have no consciousness, no self, and anything could befall our vulnerable bodies. We have died each night. Or at least, we have laid down to die, and let go of everything in this world, hoping for dreams and morning. Maybe that's why my mother could never sleep - it's too much like death and she wasn't ready. So she was always walking, chasing awareness, clinging to life. Too afraid to let go, and then, years later, unable to do anything else.

Again and Again

Margo about Meena: P. 269 She always called me "Mrs. James". It was her way of reminding me of the permanence of my decisions, of reminding me she'd never change her name for a man. But my taking Humphrey's name had been very unconscious. Accidental, almost.

Tough Questions

Lenni and Father Arthur: p. 12 "...the Bible teaches us that Christ can guide you to the answer to every question."
"But can it answer an actually question? Honestly? Can you answer me a question without telling that life is a mystery, or that everything is God's plan, or that the answers I seek will come with time?"
"Why don't you tell me your question, and we will work together to see how God can help us find an answer?"
I leaned back into the pew and it creaked. The echo reverberated around the room.
"Why am I dying?"

A ha Moment

p. 64...we will have told our story, scratching out one hundred pictures intended to say, "Lenni and Margot were here."

Memory Moment
p. 42 Margot saying, "But you look so alive." [see contrasts and contradictions] triggers a memory moment for Lenni about getting in trouble at school for tearing the cover off of a book:
I think because I didn't look contrite enough, she sent me to the head teacher's office. It felt like I was being sent to the police. I was already sure that my parents would be told and that I would be in trouble forever. My palms started sweating. Even walking along the corridor to the teacher's office while everyone was in class felt wrong, like I was somewhere I ought not to be. 
There's a boy there who is also in trouble and he doesn't seem bothered at all. Suddenly, Lenni's memory moment stops:
p. 43: And that's exactly how I felt when Margot chose to break the silence by leaning toward me and whispering, "I'm dying too."
For a moment, I met Margot's bright blue eyes and I felt that we were perhaps going to be cellmates.

Notes/Quotes

p. 31 The hospital is a cruel mistress. The International Date Line run somewhere between the end of the May Ward and the nurses' station. The only way to fight Hospital Time is to never fight it. If New Nurse wanted to claim that she had been gone for only tow and a half hours, then I would let her. People start to worry if you fight Hospital Time. They ask you what year you think it is and if you remember the name of the prime minister.

p. 46 I promised Jackie I'd stop wandering around. Or wondering around. Nobody was specific about the spelling.

p. 50 Lenni: I have an urgency to have fun.

P. 132 ...they (the nurses) are the wardens and we are the prisoners, and if they get too close, the lines might become blurred as to who is captive and who is free.

p. 133 the octopus? time spent with the octopus? all the lines and poles?

p. 264 Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. (old astronomer to his pupil, Sarah Williams)

p. 206 His shelves of books lined both sides of the living room. Most of them hadn't been touched since I first met him but they were all, as he insisted, essential. They'd been there so long that they seemed to be part of the walls rather than objects for use, like additional beams holding up the timber structure of his little cottage. With each book I took from the shelf, it felt like I was removing a brick from the walls of the house. Without him and his books, surely it would all fall down. 

p. 264 "Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night,"  I said.

p. 265

"Do you know," she said slowly, "that the stars that we see the dlearest are already dead?:
"Well, that's depressing." I took my hand from hers.
"No," she said gently, linking her arm through mine, "It's not depressing, it's beautiful. They've been gone for who knows how long, but we can still see them. They live on."
They live on.

Goodreads says:

An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.
Their last one begins here.

Life is short. No-one knows that better than seventeen year old Lenni living on the terminal ward. But as she is about to learn, it's not only what you make of life that matters, but who you share it with.

Dodging doctor's orders, she joins an art class where she bumps into fellow patient Margot, a rebel-hearted eighty three year old from the next ward. Their bond is instant as they realize that together they have lived an astonishing one hundred years.

To celebrate their shared century, they decide to paint their life stories: of growing old and staying young, of giving joy, of receiving kindness, of losing love, of finding the person who is everything.

As their extraordinary friendship deepens, it becomes vividly clear that life is not done with Lenni and Margot yet.

Fiercely alive, disarmingly funny and brimming with tenderness, THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT unwraps the extraordinary gift of life even when it is about to be taken away, and revels in our infinite capacity for friendship and love when we need them most.

Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Jamie Ford)

 

Although I felt like this book certainly wasn't a great work of literature, I really loved the story. I'm shocked at the things we have done in our past to people because of racism. People in Japanese internment camps were amazingly generous with their response to these camps during World War II. 

This was a book club book and we had a great discussion on it.

In this story a Chinese boy named Henry falls in love with a Japanese girl. 

Favorite quotes:
All Henry could do was sigh and nod. He knew that the concept all too well. Painfully well. Obedience as a sign of loyalty as an expression of honor, even as an act of love, was a well-worn theme in his household. Especially between him and his father. but that wasn't the case now, was it? Did I cause my father's stroke? Was it brought on by my disobedience? As much as Henry reasoned otherwise, he ahd a hard time convincing himself the answer was no. His guilt remained.

p. 233 "How long will you wait ofr me, Henry?"
"As long as it takes, I don't care what my father says."
"What if I'm an old woman?" Keiko said, laughing. "What if I'm in here until I'm old and my ahir is gray - "
"Then I'll bring you a cane."
"You'd wait for me?"
Henry smiled, nodded, and took Keiko's hand. He didn't even look, their two hands just seemed to fall together. They spend the better part of the day beneath that cloudy sky. Henry looked up expecting rain, but the wind, which kept them a little chilly, blew the clouds south of the camp.  There would be no more rain.

...spoiler alert....he did! 

Goodreads says:

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

The Last Thing He Told Me

 

I don't read mysteries very often. When I do, I really enjoy them! This one was an easy read and really kept me up late. 

Goodreads says: 

A woman searching for the truth about her husband’s disappearance…at any cost.

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered; as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss; as a US Marshal and FBI agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth, together. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they are also building a new future. One neither Hannah nor Bailey could have anticipated.

The Dance of Anger (Harriett Lerner, Ph.D)

 

This is a really good book on solving differences. For women, being angry often isn't allowed in our social structure. She has a good approach and many ideas regarding looking at conflict. It is one worth reading again....especially when problems come up in life.

Goodreads says:

"Anger is a signal and one worth listening to," writes Dr. Harriet Lerner, in her renowned classic that has transformed the lives of millions of readers. While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence our anger, to deny it entirely, or to vent it in a way that leaves us feeling helpless and powerless. In this engaging and eminently wise book, Dr. Lerner teaches women to identify the true sources of our anger and to use anger as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change.

Hamnet (Maggie O'Farrell)

 

It took me a long time to get through this book. I loved the premise. It is the story of Shakespeare's wife...someone we really don't know anything about. The author has made many assumptions and I was comfortable with them. The book does a really good job of expressing the inner thoughts and agony of this family. I found myself really relating to her heartache over her son that died. Also her anger when her husband wrote a play using his name. I have had similar reactions when I feel like people aren't respecting my children. I liked how the author made her quite independent and wise, almost able to read people's thoughts. It's a well-written book.

Goodreads says:

Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.

The Patron Saint of Liars (Ann Patchett)

 

I was reading a different book in preparation for my book club meeting when I realized I was reading the wrong book and so I quickly switched to this one. LOL I still didn't get this one read before book club, which I really regret because this would have been a great one to discuss. I feel like there was some kind of symbolism between the healing water spring where the hotel/home for pregnant girls was built and the main character's inability to make connections and give/feel love and connection....but I struggle to put that together succinctly.

The ending was quite surprising and quite unresolved. Call me weird, but I kind of like a book that leaves you sitting there stunned, in the middle of the road, like I did with Cecilia. 

I read a lot of reviews that said they did not like the main character, Rose. I found myself really sympathizing with her and feeling bad for her. I wanted her to find happiness....but she never did. (I added disabilities as a tag because I felt like Rose had a disability when it came to making healthy connections with other people).

Goodreads says:

In 1992, celebrated novelist Ann Patchett launched her remarkable career with the publication of her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. On this 25th anniversary, read the best-selling book that is “beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion” (Boston Herald).

St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth's extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Rose's past won't be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeth's; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving

A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hossein)

 

I first read this book in 2008, before I had even started this blog. The things I said then are still true today. I don't even know how to express how sad it is that there are women who go through things like these women do. I had forgotten much of the story and now, after hearing so much more in the news about Afghanistan, and perhaps being a little older helped me to appreciate it even more. 

A friend of mine that teaches high school English does this book as a novel study with her kids and she says that it is always a significant experience. I can only imagine the thoughts and discussion a book like this could bring out. I'm looking forward to discussing it with my book club.

Goodreads says:

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years - from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding - that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives - the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness - are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love - a stunning accomplishment.

Circling The Sun (Paula McLain)

 

Goodreads says:

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl Markham is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships. Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly. 


My review:
I read this book for book club and didn't realize at first that it was a true story. That explained all the long detail about relationships with this person and that person that went nowhere. I was inspired by her ability to keep going despite seeming to have everything against her. She was abandoned by her mother at age 4 (bizarre turn of events) and raised by her father in Africa (Mom got tired of the African life). She rubbed shoulders with the richest of the rich, and went in cycles from poverty to great success. 

Memorable quotes:

p. 132 The more things change the more they stay the same:
"There are some women who'd be expecting a fellow to step up and get serious at some point."
"I that what you're worried about? I can't seem to get rid of teh husband I've got, and anyway, what I'd realy like to know is how it feels to be on my own. Not someone's daughter or wife, I mean...but my own person."

"Oh." It seemed I'd surprised him. "There isn't a lot of that kind of thinking around here."

"Of course there is," I told him, trying to draw a smile. "It's just usually a man who's doing it."

p. 167 Clara's mother to Beryl, after returning to Africa when Beryl was an adult:
"Harry was the joy of my life." Clara's mouth trembled. Her eyes silvered with tears. "You've no idea how hard it's been, wit hthe debts and the uncertainty. And now I'm alone again."

*blink*blink* This coming from a mother who abandoned her daughter. Bizarre.

p. 171 More on Beryl's fragile mother (and who is the total opposite of Beryl):

"I really am sorry for your trouble, "Karen said again and again.

"It's not your fault," Clara assured her, gathering damp bits of her hair into hairpins. But something in her tone told me she did hold Karen responsible - or perhaps me instead. I suppose it wasn't a great surprise to see she had very little gumption or resilience, and yet it made me sad for her. How dreadful it would be if everything toppled you and you folded in. Rain, for instance, not to mention the loss of a husband. She was s pitiful I shouldn't have been irritated with her, but I couldn't help it. By dinnertime, I was too fed up with the whole situation and bolded for Soysambu and my horses - for work, which was never mysterious and never failed to soothe me.

p. 204: This reminded me of the Bible story of the woman caught in adultery. It is after a terrible confrontation with her first husband:
He shrugged. "We're all very liberal until something shines a light on us. Somehow everyone undertands a husband's jealous raging more than a wife's.....indiscretions. It's not fair, but what is?"

p. 302 On society's expectations of women (which Beryl was never very good at meeting):

"Surely you'll stop riding....at least until the aby is born. You have to take care of yourself."
"This is how I take care of myself, don't you see? If we have this baby, I'll need to do my work just as before. I don't know any other way to live."

p. 307 On their impending family:
My body would transform first, and then everything else would follow. I still cared for Mansfield, but I also felt as if I'd boarded a train meant for one place and was no irrevocably going somewhere else entirely. The whole situation made me feel desperate.

p 308 Is this why people have affairs?
....I felt a surge of guilt and awareness. I wasn't trying to toy with Mansfield exactly, but I had been flirting with the princes. In a way, I couldn't help myself. It felt marvelous to smile and make Harry smile, too, or to walk off in a particular way and know that David's eyes were on me. It was childish, and also futile, but for those moments, I believe I was free-spirited and alluring again, as if I still had some measure of control in the world.

p. 341 On knowing when it's time to move on:

"Who has the privilege of knowing what's possible, or the burden, for that matter? I can tell you, though, that I never thought I could leave. I think that's what the dreams mean. I'm not leaving Africa, but slowly, ever so slowly, Africa has begun to seep out of me.

p. 346 When two women love the same man (but actually, neither ever really had him in this case) and how death seals some things that actually never were:

During the brief service, Karen's head sagged to her chest, and I felt a strong urge to go to her. I was the one person there who knew precisely what she'd lost in Denys; she was the only one who could have understood the weight and colour of my sorrow, too. But a shift had taken place, and it held me back. She was his publicly acknowledged widow now. The gods may have stolen him from her, but with his death, she had won him back. No one could challenge their bond, or doubt how she loved him. Or how truly he'd been hers. One day she was going to write about him-write him in such a way that would sela the two of them together forever. And from those pages, I would be absent.

p. 347 Is this the reason for the title? (I really couldn't figure the title out):
We had both tried for the sun, and had fallen, lurching to earth again, tasting melted wax and sorrow. Denys wasn't hers or mine. 

He belonged to no one and never had.

Rockbound (Frank Parker Day)

This is another one of those books I would have never read if it weren't for Book Club, however, I'm glad I read it.

Truthfully, I found it hard to follow. The dialogue made it especially difficult and I found myself needing to read it aloud to even come close to understanding it. I'm not patient enough to read and re-read lines to try to figure it out. The accept though was really reminiscent of how my husband talks about Nova Scotia from the time he spent there on his mission.

Apparently, when the book was written, people from the area were angry about it because they felt like they were portrayed negatively. I can see why they'd feel that way. The superstition, the lack of education and survival mentality is heavy. I did love the parts about the teacher coming to the island and David wanting to learn to read. I'm not sure he was really successful though.

The Maritimes is a harsh and unforgiving place. Interestingly, it continues. This was a news article from today:

 records show Newfoundland was literally shaking from wind and waves

"

Seismic records show Newfoundland was literally shaking from wind and waves

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Seismometer in St. John's shows how intense Thursday's winds were

CBC News · Posted: Nov 16, 2018 8:51 AM NT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

Heavy seas crash into the land at the Drook, a spot on the road to Cape Race. (Submitted by Clifford Doran)

The waves crashing into the rugged shoreline of Newfoundland and Labrador this week led to waves of a different kind.

The squiggly black lines produced by a Natural Resources Canada seismometer show the seismic activity of a vicious windstorm that whipped across the province on Wednesday and Thursday.

• Most intense storm on the planet pounding Newfoundland and Labrador, say officials

The wind and waves were so strong, the island was shaking.

"What we saw over the past 48 hours was quite a dramatic change in [activity]," said John Cassidy, an earthquake seismologist with Natural Resources Canada. 

"It was very noticeable and in our seismic data, our plots, it just jumped off the page. You could just see that shaking."

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John Cassidy@earthquakeguy

#Newfoundland shaking... As the world's largest waves, and wind gusts of more than 100 km/h hit Newfoundland, the island is shaking (well-recorded by #NRCan's seismic station at St. John's - plot shows the past 34 hours)#weatherhttps://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/monster-waves-europe-atlantic-canada-weather-bomb-swells-visualize-heights-building-story/116931/ …https://weather.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?nl21#173354744596217647201811130507ww1676cwhx …

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The federal government has seismometers — tools that measure earth movements — all across the country.

Cassidy said each year, a handful of storms will produce winds and waves strong enough to record seismic activity on the east and west coast.

And over time, as these weather events impact older infrastructure, it just breaks down.- Randy Oram, Karwood Homes

With winds gusting between 100 and 140 km/h, the conditions were just right to get the Rock rocking.

"It's that combination of the wind, that incredible wind, and the waves that were hitting the island," Cassidy said. 

"Both of those, the waves and the wind, gets trees shaking, rocks shaking ... And all of that can be recorded by our seismometers on the island."

Homebuilders association reacts

Randy Oram, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, said people have to prepare for these earth-quivering storms to be the new normal.

There was damage reported to home and businesses across the province, but Oram said his company, Karwood Homes, has yet to receive any reports of damage.

Jeremy Eaton

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Part of the roof at the Gould’s Lions Arena has been blown off due to wind. Area has been closed off to the public #nlwx #nltrafffic #cbcnl

9:49 AM - Nov 15, 2018

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When asked why some homes suffer damage and others go unscathed, Oram said it has to do with location and age.

"With these weather events, some of the extremes can be localized," he said. "And over time, as these weather events impact older infrastructure, it just breaks down."​

Oram said the industry is changing as the weather worsens, and contractors need to keep up with the standards.

"You look at shingles we were using 15 years ago, they were rated for 97 km/h winds. What we're using nowadays, 210 kilometres is what they're rated for. As climate change happens, building products advance."

It was very noticeable and in our seismic data, our plots, it just jumped off the page. You could just see that shaking.- Seismologist John Cassidy

 

Randy Oram, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, said standards are changing to meet climate change. (Paula Gale/CBC)

Part of the industry is regulated by Natural Resources Canada, which is currently working on a five-year project on adaptations to home building for climate change.

Where it used to study historical weather events, Natural Resources Canada is now trying to model future storms and set standards based on what is expected to happen, Oram said.

"They're actually looking at where the weather is going in the future, and testing new products and codes for the future."

With files from the St. John's Morning Show